[eMarketer] Twitter squares off against Apple

Elon Musk fired a salvo of Tweets chastising Apple for pulling its ads on Twitter and claiming Apple threatened to “withhold” Twitter from the App Store, setting up a conflict with tech’s biggest superpower, per The New York Times.

The speculation is that Musk wants to transition Twitter away from its ad-supported revenue model into a subscription-based service. This, however, will result in Apple’s App Store taking up to 30% of subscription revenues on mobile devices and Google Play similarly taking a 15% cut.

Apple made up 4% of Twitter revenue in Q1, spending $48 million in the quarter —effectively making it the biggest ad buyer on the platform according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

Apple has since paused Twitter advertising. This prodded Musk to go on the offensive.

Musk is going up against a wealthy, powerful company that also has a lot of sway in the tech industry. Apple brought Facebook to its knees with its AppTrackingTransparency feature and could use advertising or an App Store ban to stop Twitter’s momentum.

eMarketer posits that Twitter has already violated the App Store’s terms of service by allowing spam, disinformation, and banned content, giving Apple reasons to shut them out.

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